Labour peer warns that working class are abandoning Labour

One of Ed Miliband's former advisers has warned the Labour Party that working class people are defecting to UKIP because Labour has become too middle class.

Lord Glasman told the Times that traditional Labour supporters are worried about immigration and welfare and that Labour need to address those issues if the working class aren't to abandon Labour permanently. He went on to say that the working class Labour vote collapsed in the last general election and that it was middle class voters - those who Tony Blair courted for so many years at the expense of the traditional working class vote - who saved them from bigger embarrassment at the polls.

The Labour middle class vote held up (in 2010). It was the working class vote that died. These are often people who are earning, who have jobs, but they don't see Labour as representing their interests.

UKIP is predicted to come first in next month's EU elections by all the main polling companies.